The Origins of “Woke” – Part 2

Written by Classical Liberal

[You can read Part 1 here]  

Through the 2000s and early-2010s, ‘woke’ was used either as a term for literally not falling asleep, or as slang for one’s suspicions of being cheated on by a romantic partner. After Badu’s 2008 release of ‘Master Teacher’, ‘woke’ saw increased usage as a term for socio-political awareness among black social media users. Professor of African-American Studies David Stovall told writer Amanda Hess, ‘Erykah brought it alive in popular culture. She means not being placated, not being anaesthetized’.

Thus, the phrase ‘Stay Woke’ became a powerful meme. For example, activist DeRay Mckesson became prominent, in part, after news photos of his arrest at a July 2016 protest in Baton Rouge showed him wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the Twitter hashtag ‘#StayWoke’. Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, said his own habit of wearing a t-shirt emblazoned ‘#StayWoke’ advocated for ‘being aware … staying aware and keep questioning’. 

From social media and activist circles, the word ‘woke’ spread to more mainstream usage. Linguist and social critic John McWhorter wrote in 2016 that ‘woke’ ‘in essence, serves a function that those of a certain age will recall the phrase “politically correct” once did’. In 2019, the headline of a Bloomberg Businessweek article asked ‘Is Wikipedia Woke?’ in reference to the largely white contributor base of the online encyclopaedia. MTV News identified ‘woke’ as a key teen slang word for 2016. 

‘Woke’ has also entered the corporate domain. In an article for Time, journalist Alana Semuels detailed the phenomenon of ‘woke capitalism’ in which brands have attempted to include socially aware messages in advertising campaigns. In the article she cites the example of professional American football player Colin Kaepernick fronting a campaign for Nike with the slogan ‘believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything’, after Kaepernick caused controversy by refusing to stand for the US national anthem at an NFL game as a protest against racism. The term ‘corporate wokeness’ has also been used by conservative writer Ross Douthat. Feminist writer Helen Lewis wrote an article for The Atlantic criticising the minimal efforts some companies make to feign progressivism while maintaining existing power structures. Conservative commentator Rita Panahi has accused corporations, such as Nike, of promoting ‘woke’ campaigns in the Western world while choosing to ignore cases of modern slavery and human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in China so as not to upset business interests. In the run up to the launch of the self-declared ‘anti-woke’ GB News TV channel, it faced calls for advertisers to boycott the channel over fears that it would be funding ‘hate’. 

‘Woke’ reached mainstream American awareness as a term with political meaning following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, when ‘stay woke’ became a phrase used by activists admonishing people to keep watch for police brutality. Since then, Romano argues that ‘woke’ has evolved into a ‘single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory’. Linguist Ben Zimmer writes that as the term has gained mainstream acceptance, ‘its original grounding in African-American political consciousness has been obscured’. Hess argues that the word has been culturally appropriated, writing, ‘The conundrum is built in. When white people aspire to get points for consciousness they walk right into the cross hairs between allyship and appropriation’. Writer and activist Chloe Valdary has stated that the concept of being ‘woke’ is a ‘double-edged sword’, that can ‘alert people to systemic injustice’ while also being ‘an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse’. 

Among American conservatives, the term is often used mockingly or sarcastically. Both the word ‘woke’ and the concept of wokeness have been subject to parodies and memes describing the term as pejorative or synonymous with radical identity politics, cancel culture, race-baiting, extreme forms of PC, internet call-out culture, virtue signalling, and as part of a general culture war. Fictional internet personality and social activist Titania McGrath, who was created by writer Andrew Doyle, is a parody of a stereotypical ‘woke’ figure who promotes identity politics and PC. In March 2019, Doyle published a book under McGrath’s name titled Woke: A Guide to Social Justice which parodies ‘woke’ thinking and ideas on race, politics and gender. Doyle himself has criticised the idea of ‘woke’ politics as belonging to a ‘fantasy world’.

In October 2019, former US President Barack Obama expressed comments that critiqued ‘woke’ culture, stating: ‘This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re politically woke, and all that stuff – you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws’. 

Social justice scholars Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith, in their 2019 book Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter, argue against what they term as ‘Woker-than-Thou-it is: striving to be educated around issues of social justice is laudable and moral, but striving to be recognized by others as a woke individual is self-serving and misguided’. 

In 2021, social scientists Stephane Beaud and Gerard Noiriel argued that in order to achieve social progress, France should retain as an objective the greater levelling of social classes without emphasis on racial considerations; rather than becoming ‘woke’, as race is not recognised by the French government.

Clearly, ‘woke’ is code for Social Justice Warrior (SJW). The left uses it as a badge of honour; the right uses it to mock them. 

I agree entirely with Beaud and Noiriel. Social progress can be achieved if we focus on trying to help everybody who needs help regardless of race. Emphasising some racial groups at the expense of others is a recipe for societal breakdown; as we are witnessing in the USA, where Proud Boys clash with Antifa.